'Swarm of armed drones': Who is attacking Russia's military bases?

Turkey called on Russian Federation and Iran on Wednesday to pressure Syrian authorities to halt a military offensive in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province, which Damascus launched despite an worldwide deal to reduce hostilities there.

The Khmeimim base, the heart of Russia's military operations in Syria, is deep in Syrian-government-held territory and until now had seemed immune to attack, said Maxim Suchkov of the Russian International Affairs Council, who also writes for the publication Al-Monitor.

"According to the Russian Defense Ministry, it was established that the launch of the drones was carried out from the area of the Muazar settlement located in the southwestern part of Idlib de-escalation zone controlled by the armed formations of the so-called "moderate" opposition", the statement said.

The Russian Ministry of Defense had previously insinuated the United States had helped.

Eric Pahon, a spokesperson for the US Department of Defense, told The Independent: "Any suggestion the US, the coalition or our partnered forces played a role in an attack on a Russian base is without any basis in fact and utterly irresponsible".

In a statement published to its Facebook page, the Russian Ministry of Defence said that its security systems surrounding the Syrian air base of Khmeimim and the naval port in the city of Tartus successfully repelled 13 "unidentified small-size air targets" in what it called a terrorist attack on 5 January.

"Iran and Russian Federation should fulfil their responsibility". "There's a lot of fishy stuff going on in Idlib - agents running around, and groups working with groups they shouldn't work with", Lund said.